Matching Group Profiles to Teaching Styles

Attention All Teachers

Do you know what Creative Learning’s best-kept secret is?

You won’t believe it.

It’s the good old Group Profile.

Group Profiles have been around for more than a decade, and yet our latest research shows that fewer than 30% of the teachers know how to use it to make their lives easier.

Group Profiles

A group profile is a summary of all the learning strengths and flexibilities in your class. It explains what makes your pupils:

· Misbehave

· Not do their homework

· Do poorly in tests

· Hand in their projects late

Learning Styles

Creative Learning instruments for assessing Learning Styles identify 48 learning elements. That’s a lot of information to remember per student! Group Profiles give you a snapshot of your students’ learning needs and pitfalls.

Teaching Styles

As a teacher, you have your own unique Teaching Style, too. Is it compatible with your class’s Group Profile? If your one of your student groups seems particularly unruly and underachieving, have a look at their Group Profile and compare it to your Teaching Style.

Learning Styles and the Magic of Music

Question: I’ve heard that listening to music while studying helps children with their grades. Is that true?

Answer: It depends on the child’s Learning Style. Some students learn better in a quiet room. Others concentrate better in an environment with lots of background noise, such as the sounds of the city outside the window, the sounds of the family going about their routine tasks, the sound of soft music.

Have a look at a sample Learning Style Report to see it in action.

Question: So if my child’s Learning Style shows they have a strong preference for background noise, I should let them have the radio or the TV on while they’re doing homework?

Answer: Not quite. While it’s a good idea to ensure the room has some sort of background noise for those learners who need it, not all background noise is equal. Loud noise, a movie or inappropriate music (pop, rap) will actually distract the learner, no matter what their Learning Style strengths may be.

The best music to play for learning purposes is Classical Music such as Mozart, particularly if the student needs to be creative. For repetitive tasks, Baroque-style music is better. You can learn more about the use of music in learning through our training courses.

Question: How can I find out what my son’s Learning Style is and whether music is good for him?

Answer: Please see here for more information.

Learning Styles and the Magic of Communication

My Parents Won’t Let Me....

Have you ever looked at Bebo, MySpace or Yahoo forums for youngsters? They are full of troubled teens and messages such as:

• My parents don’t get me!
• They won't let me have an ipod.
• I hate homework!!!

Call it the Generation Gap, call it a perfectly normal domestic power struggle, call it what you will. But the fact is, arguments at home are neither pleasant nor constructive. They don’t help us raise our children and, in extreme cases, they may lead straight to the silent killer called stress.

What You Can Do

Part of your job description as a family is Communication. Unfortunately, however, the way you communicate depends on your Learning Style, which will be unique for every family member.

A Learning Style is the optimal way in which a person concentrates, learns new concepts and memorises information.

Consider how your spouse and children absorb information best.

If, for example, you are an auditory person, you will want to talk about any issues you may have. But stop, wait, think. Is your family as good at listening as you are at talking? If they are readers, though, you will be better off to send them an email... peculiar as it may sound!

If you tend to think sequentially, you will want to start at the beginning. If your family has holistic preferences, however, they will want you to skip the details and get to the point long before you’re ready. You will have a better chance of being understood if you give them an overview or the reason for the discussion in the first place.

(For the complete picture of all the elements that make up your Communication style, please see our LSA Pyramid.)

Is your family visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic? Do they think sequentially or holistically? Have a look here.

Chewing Gum and Learning Styles

Question: My daughter’s Learning Style indicates she has a strong preference for intake. I myself also noticed that her concentration improves when she’s allowed to chew or nibble on things. Unfortunately, teachers don’t allow chewing gum during ballet lessons or piano lessons, and gum is banned at school. What can I do?

Answer: The first step is to show the teachers your daughter’s Learning Style Results (see sample) and explain why chewing is such an important part of some children’s learning process. If they are not flexible on gum, perhaps they would allow a sports drink bottle in class. You can also experiment with chewable necklaces, ribbons or pens.

Question: Back up. What exactly is a Learning Style?

Answer: A Learning Style is the unique set of preferences and non-preferences that determines the way in which you concentrate best. In simple terms, it is a list of:

• things that help you learn, and
• things that make learning harder.

In the example above, a strong need to chew while concentrating on the new topic, was identified as 1 of the 49 elements that make up the girl’s Learning Style.

Question: 49? Really? What are they?

Answer: Amazing, isn’t it? There really are 49 things that affect the way you learn. Some of the elements that help or hinder your studies include:

• the amount of light in the room
• what time it is (earlier is not always better!)
• what motivates you
• whether you like learning in a group
• how happy you are with lists and bullet points

For the complete picture, please see our LSA Pyramid.

Question: I’m ready to give learning styles a try. What do I do?

Answer: Welcome aboard! Have a look here.

Success, Heroes and Learning Styles

Do you remember Pilot C.B. "Sully" Sullenberger? He is the captain who successfully landed his plane, full of passengers, in the Hudson River earlier this year? His quick decision and skill saved 155 lives.

Nevertheless, his solution was totally outside the box. The air-traffic controller who handled the flight thought landing in the river would be a death sentence for all aboard. "People don't survive landings on the Hudson River," 10-year veteran controller Patrick Harten said afterwards.

So what went right? Sullenberger said in an interview afterwards that his success could be ascribed to the years of training. It was part of his job to school other pilots to react under extreme conditions such as plane malfunctions, so he had played many fictitious scenarios of recovering a plane from an apparently disastrous situation.

What kind of a learning style profile can we expect from a person like C.B. "Sully" Sullenberger? (A learning style is the unique set of preferences and non-preferences that determines the optimal way in which an individual concentrates and works.)

“Very flexible,” answers Barbara Prashnig, an international expert on learning styles. “A person who doesn’t freeze in such an extreme situation is probably somebody who is able to receive and interpret information in a number of ways.”

The pilot’s learning style was probably very flexible. What is your learning style?

Incidentally, the same pilot has recently spoken up against pay cuts for professional pilots. He argued that pay cuts would drive experienced pilots away from the cockpit, leaving airlines and passengers more exposed to risk when things go wrong. That’s one recession lesson every employer should be taking on board: hold on to in-house expertise.

So, if do have to let some staff go, how do you choose? You need to know whose working style is best suited to the job. Learn more about Working Styles.

Sleep, Creativity and Learning Styles

• I know about sleep. But what are learning styles?

A learning style is the unique set of preferences and non-preferences that determines the optimal way in which an individual concentrates and works.

• Does your learning style help you solve problems and be creative?

In a nutshell, yes. If you work in an environment compatible with your learning style, you will be more productive, more creative and more able to solve problems.

• Oh. Is that all?

No, not at all. Did you know what the latest research discovered? They looked into the correlation between sleep and problem solving, and they discovered that people who’ve “slept on it” are generally more able to solve the problem in question than those who stayed awake trying to solve it.

· And the link to learning styles would be...

Simple. If your learning style allows you to stop the task you have just begun and go off have a nap, it’s good news according to Sara Mednick, University of California San Diego, who conducted the study into sleep and creativity.

Mednick summarised her findings as follows: "We found that for creative problems you've already been working on, the passage of time is enough to find solutions. However, for new problems, only REM sleep enhances creativity."

So...

• What is your learning style?

Parenting and Learning Styles

Parenting and Learning Styles

What is a Learning Style / Working Style? It’s the unique set of preferences and non-preferences that determines the way in which you concentrate and work at your very best.

1. The Busy Parent

The busy parent has:

· a job away from home,

· children in after-school care

· and dinner to make.

Objective-driven and focussed, the busy parent wears many hats and is a great organiser.

If that’s you, chances are that your Working Style is analytic (click here to see what that means). But how well do you react to change in your life? Does your children’s impulsive behaviour cause you stress? Would you be able to cope without a strict schedule? Discover your own Working Style and find out how best to manage your stress levels. Here’s how to do it.

2. The Cotton-Wool Parent

· Provides warmth and soft landings and padding from the big bad world...

· ... too much at times.

Today’s world looks more dangerous than the one we grew up in. The cars are faster, the competition fiercer and stranger-danger has never had it easier now that we’re all online. Is your child likely to enjoy socialising online more than in real life? What does their Learning Style indicate? Find out.

3. The Stressed Parent

No need to say more. We’ve all been there.

Stress is an integral part of parenting. However, if your blood pressure rises the minute you walk into the house, it’s probably because your Working Style doesn’t allow you to function at your best:

• in a noisy environment, and/or
• in a brightly lit room, and/or
• in the late afternoon, and/or
• without a formal structure, and/or
• given any one of the 40+ elements.

Discover what your Working Style strengths are so that you can enjoy your family.